Jake Spjute practice session: 9-3-14

Right now I'm just trying to get familiar with my Italian and French sets. I found a YouTube of Joyce didonato singin my entire Italian set in one recital, si I was able to use that to get a feel for how the accompaniment goes along with the vocal line.
My voice has been pretty tired all week I due to the celebrate America rehearsals and performances, so I've been tapping out the rhythms in my music to be able to get the feel of how the songs go. Slow process, but it works I'm the end.

Jacob Spjute lesson record reactions jacob cortez

I spent the first few minutes just getting to know jacob a little bit. Apparently we were both in Meistersingers when I sang in their choir for a year when I came home from my mission. I didn't remember him at all though. I felt bad. Anyway he's a music major at bsu, he's 23, and sings tenor.
I started off with the same stretches I always do. Rolling the neck very softly and slowly in circles then reversing the direction. Then we did the bent over hanging stretch I like to do. Instead of starting off with vocalizes I asked him if he had a song he wanted to sing just so I could hear him sing and get a feeling for his voice and to see if I could see/hear any problems or anything like that. He sang a hymn for me, and I played what I could of the accompaniment. He has a really nice voice. It's very light and clear, and in general it sounds very free. I did notice some breath gesture problems when he was singing. He was doing a lot of heavy Bucket breathing and his chest was moving way too much for my liking. So I talked about breath gesture and I explained the idea of the rose and breathing down with the diaphragm so he wouldn't recruit all those extra muscles around his shoulders neck and chest while singing. After that we did some vocalizes and I asked him if he could try to apply the rose breath gesture into these vocalizes. I said I would give him plenty of time inbetween scales to set up a good breath. I started on C3 and did 1-9 and down again on an "a" vowel. We moved up a half step until we reached f#4 and then we stopped because he wasn't able to be as free and open as he was on the other scales lower pin the range. I had to stop him twice to remind him of the rose gesture. We did it again, except this time we went faster between scales. I wanted to see if he could work that rose gesture correctly with less time to set up on the scales. He was able to do it two times but I had to stop him after that and talk about setting up breath correctly every time. I told him that I also struggle with this very same thing. We talked for a bit about choir at bsu, then all of a sudden the half hour was up.
I asked him what things he would take away from the lesson and he said obviously the breath gesture and the rose technique. I think he already has a decent technique set up and everything I think he's just at the refinement stage in his training. Pretty cool guy!

Jacob Spjute lesson plan jacob cortez

So jacob is a guy that sings in the Meistersingers at bsu. Tim givens told him about me and that I was ding lesson while I was home so he texted me saying he would like a lesson. Since I've never heard him sing, and I don't really know anything about him, I'm kinda in the same boat as I usually am. This first lesson is about listening to his voice and figuring out where he is at from a technical standpoint. I figure he must be a pretty decent singer if he is in the concert choir at bsu.. I guess I'll find out!

Jake Spjute lesson plan Rex spjute

So Rex is unce Carl's son, I wonder if they'll have any of the same tendencies?? Haha
Anyway, Rex is a pretty good singer from what I've heard him do in the past. He's been in choir all through high school, and is also part of a barber shop quartet made up of himself and his 3 buddies. This first lesson I'm gonna see wheee he is at vocally and technically, at this point I just want to get to know his voice and figure out if he has any problems.

Jake Spjute lesson record reactions uncle Carl #2

We began with some relaxed light stretches, the same ones I do with Cameron and my other students. Hi said he hadn't really sung yet today so we started off with some light vocalizes on an "a" vowel. Descending five note scales, I feel like they are the best to begin with, we started on A3 and worked our way down to  a low G. I feel like he doesn't have a very big range, which I think is due to him being in his fifties and not training his voice on a daily basis, but I would definitely classify him as a baritone.
During the downward scales I would have to ask him to fix his chin. He tends to put his chin down toward his chest when he sings, he holds that position the whole time and it looks like it causes a lot of tension just by looking at him, so I can imagine it's causing a lot of inner tension with the voice. My cue for him to put his chin in alignment is "chin up" which probably sounds horrible to command as a voice teacher, but for him it works. I had to explain the top teeth being parallel with the floor idea to him last time at our lesson, so when I say say chin up, he actually moves his chin to a better aligned position. During these scales I also noticed his breathing seemed chesty and this seems like it triggered the chin to go down into his neck/chest again. So I explained to him about breathing with the diaphragm and not using any extra muscles that are not needed to breath. I also explained that when we recruit more muscles than needed, we usually cause a tension, which will hurt the quality of our voice.
After these scales and conversations about breathing and alignment, we took out his music for secret garden and worked on his part for the rest of the lesson. Most of the role he sings is pretty much in the middle range of his voice, so it in general isn't hard for him to sing, but I wanted him to sound as beautiful as he could. So I talked about vowel space in the mouth and how we shouldn't change the space more than we need to when we change the vowels. We talked about keeping a big open space all the time, and applying the breath technique we had discussed earlier into the phrases of his role. I demonstrated singing different vowels while trying to maintain the same space, but since I'm not the best at that, I turned to YouTube for the help of Bruce ford to demonstrate. I asked if I turned the music off, if he could tell when Bruce changed vowels, so we had a little fun with it and basically, we both couldn't tell when he changed vowels with the volume down because his vowels were so uniform. Very cool!

Jake Spjute lesson record reaction Cameron Spjute #2

I started off the lesson just by talking to Cameron a little bit about how he was doing etc. he said that he had been trying to remember the posture technique stuff in his choir classes and that he felt it was helping.
I started off with the normal neck and back stretches, rotating the neck in circles in both directions, and letting the head and back hang down reaching with the hands down to the feet. We then started singing with a soft vocalize starting on A3 and going down on an "a" vowel. Instead of going through the scale for a while without correcting anything like last week, I stopped quite a few time in this exercise to correct his posture and his nervous body movements that I think May be a hard habit for him to break. When he sings in the middle or higher part of his range he gets very nervous and his body starts to wiggle around and he crosses his arms and just does kind if nervous twitch type things. So I would have him start lower in his range where he seems very comfortable then I would switch up to higher notes and do a scale right away with no break and I would try and track his body I to see if he was still doing those nervous body movements, he improved a little bit when I would have him do the low scale-high scale jumps like that.
By this time the lesson was already almost over! ( I can't believe how fast time goes when I'm teaching)
So I wanted to work on the hymn we worked on last time before he left to see if he could sing the higher notes with more confidence and technique this time. With a few reminders to   have a good breathing posture and a big space he was able to sing the second stanza which has the highest phrase in the song, not only was he able to do it on one breath but he sang all the notes and he didn't get nervous and give up like he did before. And the tone was improved from the first time we did it last time. It was very cool to see his improvement  in this lesson.

Jake Spjute lesson plan Carl Spjute 2

Today I wanna see if uncle Carl is able to not push his chin down into his chest. He was doing that a lot last time, hopefully he's been working on remembering "chin up"
I will also be monitoring his breath control, reminding him of the "rose" idea if need be.
I also want to continue applying these principals into his role in secret garden.
Short term goal: see if Carl can self monitor himself when he pushes his chin down
Long term goal: keep working breath control/posture until it becomes a habit

Jake spjute lesson plan Cameron 2

So last time Cameron had struggles with just ting his jaw out and upward, and he also had problems with keeping his body aligned, and his breath down, ( sounds like every singer ever..) haha
Today I want to see if he has been practicing better technique and posture, and then i want to apply those principles in the hymn we were working on.
Short term goal: get him to be able to self monitor chin movement
Long term goal: achieve proper body alignment

Jake Spjute lesson record reactions/'uncle Carl

We started the lesson just by talking about his role in secret garden and what he wants to work in so he won't be so nervous and so that he'll sound good. He said there is high part in one of his quartets. That sits up pretty high so he wants to be able to perform that better, and at the end of a bit of earth reprise he sings a high A in falsetto and he says sometimes it comes out and sometimes it doesn't.
For our first vocalize I started with what I always do. Descending scales, light and easy. I started on Bflat and worked my way down. I noticed that he tends to tuck his chin way down into his neck/chest quite a bit. So I asked him if he could be think about keeping his too teeth parallel with the floor. ( it's a good trick) this improved his sound after the adjustment, it was more rich than it was before. I asked him how that felt and he said it felt easier that way. Good!!!
We proceeded with some vocalizes and he went down to about a low G. I would classify uncle Carl as a baritone...
We then did an ascending vocalize on an A vowel up to an f before he started getting nervous and his voice cracked. I had to remind him once again of his chin position, and to think about the teeth being parallel to the floor.
As we went through his sings for the musical, I noticed his breath management was off. He was taking a lot of big breathes frequently but not sustaining them very long. So I stopped him and we did some breath exercises and I demonstrated diaphragm breathing and I implemented the "rose" technique into his breathing. We sang a phrase in one breath that he ahead to do in two the previous time, I asked him how that felt and he said it felt much better and that it was amazing how much just a breath gesture can change the way he felt singing. Along with the breath gesture, I gave him instruction on keeping the vowels pure, and the space in the mouth open, and to make the space in his mouth as similar as he could for each vowel. This helped a ton with the high A that he has to float in falsetto. He was able to do it very nicely each time with a warm open sound. I asked him how he felt about his falsetto notes and he said they were much easier than before! Awesome.
So I gave him 3 ideas to remember from this lesson that I thought were most crucial to him at this time:
1. Chin up ( I know it sounds like terrible advice but for him it works)
2. Rose
3. Similar space

Jake Spjute lesson plan uncle carl

So I kind of have an idea of how uncle Carl sings... Most in my family are fairly musical so I imagine he will be able to stay in tune and all that stuff. The main reason we are doing these lessons is so that he will be able to sing more confidently in Boise music weeks production of the secret garden. He plays Mary's dad so he actually has a decent amount of singing to do. He says most of it sits up higher than what he is normally comfortable with, so let's see what he has going on!
Short term goal: figure out his voice and what he needs to improve
Long term goal: help him be more confident for the show

Jake Spjute lesson record/reactions Cameron #1

We began the lesson just by talking a little bit and I especially wanted to talk about his choir experience in high school, what part he sings, that type of stuff. So he sings in the sophomore choir and the men's choir, and he sings tenor 1.
I had him sing a descending scale starting from A3 going down. The guy went clear down to a Db2!! And it wasn't vocal fry or anything like that, it had a nice warm tone to it. I couldn't believe they had him singing tenor over there. Then again, the new high school teacher over there is quite awful, from what I've heard from my other cousins that go there... Anyway, he's definitely a BASS.
we then started an ascending scale on an "a"
He asked if I wanted falsetto, and I said just sing whatever you feel feels right and whatever comes out comes out. So we started and I noticed that his middle range and upper range was much weaker than his low notes. I was very surprised by this because he told me they have him sing tenor I. He then told me that he's been singing tenor since the 8th grade. I could see that maybe because his voice hadn't matured yet.. But there is no way he should be singing tenor.... What the heck.
So I probably should have done this before we started singing, but next we did some stretches. Rotating the neck I around in circles slowly in both directions, and bending over and letting the back and neck hang naturally while taking some deep breaths. After that he told me that he liked those stretches and I said I did too.
 Before we began to sing again, I wanted to correct his posture. I didn't want to correct anything before this because I just wanted to hear his voice and see where he was at. He had a nervous looking posture, kind of hunched over and he had his hands clasped behind his back. So I talked about body alignment and how having a good alignment will help your voice be more healthy, clear, and free. We then did three quick scales on an "a" vowel. I stopped him on the third because I wanted him to make a more tall and pure "a" vowel. He kind of had mix of "uh" and a bright "ah" if that makes sense... It was a very immature sounding "a" maybe that explains it better. But he did improve on the pure vowel idea I have him.
At this point I also noticed that he was jutting his jaw forward and up. So I stopped again and pointed that out to him. I told him that when the jaw goes up and out like that it causes tension and it would effect the freeness and color of his tone. I displayed an aligned jaw, telling him to keep his top teeth parallel with the floor.
The parallel idea worked really well for him, and he was able to monitor himself throughout the rest of the scales.
He said that it felt really weird to have his chin/head in that position, and that he felt it would be easier to sing higher and have more energy. I tried to explain again how that head position would be detrimental to his sound and timbre, and that that position also causes tension, that he probably doesn't feel now, but would eventually feel in the future.
I decided to see if we could apply these concepts in a song that he knew. So I grabbed the hymnal and I asked him to sing his favorite hymn. We went through it once and then the time was out for the
Lesson. I asked him if he could name two things that he would take away from the lesson and apply into his singing at school, he said that he would remember to have a better posture and to not tilt his chin up. Couldn't have asked for a better response!
While I'm home we'll continue to have a few more lessons, and we'll be able to keep working on stuff. Great first lesson, I can tell where he is at vocally, and technically, and he was able to make improvements in this first lesson, which is really Cool.

Jake Spjute lesson plan Cameron spjute #1

So Cameron is a 16 year old, and he sings in two of the choirs at his school. I've never really heard him sing however,  So this lesson will mainly be a get to know you type lesson, once I get an idea of where his voice voice and technique are at, then I think I'll be able to make some goals for him while I have a few lessons with him while I'm home.

Jake lesson record reactions: Paul #7

We began the lesson just by talking a bit, I just wanted to see how he was doing and all that stuff. He wanted to know if there were more things he could do to fix his head position and alignment, ( such a great student!) I told him that it was something that we would both have to work on and that it would take time to get it down most likely. But I assured him that little by little it I would come and he would be able to feel when he was assuming the correct posture.
We then did some back and neck stretches, the normal ones we always do, just to get him nice and released, (me too)
He said that he really likes these stretches before these lessons, I told him that he should do them all the time! Not just only when he is singing.
We started singing with some soft vocalizes, I started on B flat and descended down on a five note scale on an ( a) vowel. During these scales I would give him one word cues to help him remember what I wanted him to think about/do, such as "rose" "light" "easy" I think he responds well to these cues, due to the fact that the sound improved most of the time after giving said cues. We continued these scales until he reached a low A.
We moved on to ascending scales while staying on the (a) vowel. This time I asked him for more energy on these scales as opposed to our "light" and " easy" scales from before. I reminded him that I still wanted the light and easy feeling but with more energy and urgency. We started on C3 and worked our way up to F#4 right in the passagio. While he was singing these scales my wooden cues mainly consisted of "space" and " don't change anything" I also demonstrated a little bit so he could hear what I wanted and I sang with him a little as well. I feel he gets a little more confident when I sing with him on things like that.
We then worked on the hymn that he had chosen to sing, and tried to apply these concepts from our warm ups into the song. By the time we got done singing through it once, the time was up for the lesson. I asked him if he would be able to practice the hymn by himself and try to remember those wooden cues I had given him and he said yes.
Overall I'm really happy with how Paul is doing! He is so smart so it's really easy being his teacher.. Haha

Jake Lesson plan Paul #7

Paul has been progressing very nicely. It is really awesome to see a student want to learn and grow, and of course the best part is that he is very aware of the things that he is doing while he is inning in which makes it really fun and easy in lessons. Even though Cindy fixed his head placement and body alignment, he still tends to return to his chin lifting. Which obviously is to be expected, it would be nuts if he fixed that posture after one correction.

Short term: help him recognize when he juts his jaw/head up

Long term: big space, vowel unification

Taylee B. Taessia K. LESSON RECORD/REACTIONS 04/08/14

This lesson was such a let down, especially after the awesome one we had had the day before. I felt so bad because I knew that it was basically my fault that the lesson was going to poorly. I felt awful with my headache and with my own vocal fatigue from opera and just that week in generally being crazy and stressful.  I just felt so bumbed that she wasn't getting 100% from me and that it was so obviously effecting the lesson. I was really grateful for some of the comments that Cindy made, both in the lesson and in the email later. I feel like even though I was disappointed that Cindy couldn't have seen a really great lesson, like the one before, I still learned a lot about myself as a teacher. Maybe having a really bad lesson was good so that Cindy could see more of what I could improve on.

I felt really good about the lesson that I did in class later that week. I tried really hard to take the comments in the email to heart and to apply them to the lesson I was giving. It was a lesson very similar to the Monday lesson, and I think Tage did a really great job of listening to what I asked for and trying to stay on the same level as me.

Taylee B. Taessia K. LESSON RECORD/REACTIONS 04/07/14

Thankfully, she had been practicing, so that was a load off my mind. To start off I had her flop over to release her shoulders and neck (I made sure she had bent legs and that he neck was completely released). Really quickly I had her do the aborigine squat.

*Starting in FM, "A B C D-thee", speaking the letters and singing thee on 5-4-3-2-1.*

Next I had her hum (hum of indecision) and then tell me about her day a sentence at a time. This helped with getting more of the speech-like presence. We moved back into "thee" but I had her imagine the "teacher pick me" feeling and to take her time thinking the first not. She did really well once she started to get the note really clearly in her mind before she started singing, which I made known to her. (I remember giving this lesson after I had read my lesson comments telling me to be more positive).

Next we did the "who's new blue shoes". I had her shake her head in a slow no as a destraction. It worked ok except she was pulling her tongue back again. I then told her to imagine that she was babysitting and one of the kids was being naughty and she was confronting them. I had her point forward on "who's" and this combined with the babysitting thing helped focus the sound a lot more. As the lesson went on, I tried not only to be more positive but to be more specific with what I liked. This made ALL the difference in the lesson. She understood exactly what I wanted and what needed to be done to get there. Plus the happiness in the overall mood was really beneficial in keeping the sound more buoyant. She even got to the point where she would recognize if she had taken a good preparatory breath and if she'd raised her larynx with the breath. It was so cool to see her finally understanding things on her own with out me having to tell her! I few times I had to remind her of a few things such as the difference between being ready (like a diver) and over relaxing in an attempt to have the dump moments. I did a lot of asking her to tell me what things felt like and and if they felt better or worse than before. SO MUCH AWARENESS WAS HAPPENING!! IT WAS AWESOME!!!

As she was singing her song, she was getting very involved and was "trying" and "making" a lot of the sound. I wanted to have her sing all the way through the song in order to know what needed attention. After she finished I had her tell me good things that she noticed (because there were good things--especially since the last time I had heard her). What she said was good, but a little bit on the "interesting side". So we talked about what she said and how it was partially correct, and what some of the feelings  probably actually meant. While she was singing I wrote down a few things that needed some attention. First I mentioned that her tempo was dragging a little bit and that it needed more of a bouncy, rebound feeling. I had her start again and it made a ton of difference! Next we talked about intention behind the music. I talked about how she needed to have a reason to be doing what the composer had written. She got a little bit in her own head, so I had her count the tiles on the wall. This helped a lot! Technique wise she would "breath fart" a lot and she would go sharp a ton from trying to wring out the sound. I had her lay on the ground and suddenly she had a beautiful released sound! This lesson had so many positive outcomes! I felt, for the first time, that my teaching was beneficial and not just.... blah.

Taylee B. Taessia K. LESSON RECORD/REACTION 02/01/14

This lesson was a prime example of why teaching family can be very difficult. Poor Tage got the brunt of my anger that was created from a misunderstanding with Sid. It seems easier to be short with the people you are closest to. Maybe it's because we know them so well that we expect more from them. Regardless, it took me a few minutes to realize how grouchy and rude I was being to Taessia, who was an innocent bystander. Luckily I realized how poorly I was acting and quickly apologized for my behavior.

Although I way overreacted, it doesn't make Tage's lack of knowing her notes and rhythms any less bad. She's had this song long enough. Even with us only starting to work on it in lessons 3 weeks ago, she should at least know the melody of the song by now, since she picked this song before Christmas. Plus on top of that, we were dong this lesson way late at night because she kept putting our lesson off, and she hadn't had a lesson that week.

This made working on technique in the song difficult, but we still got some work done in the vocalizes.

To begin with we did some yawning and stretching with some sighs. The first vocalize was "ooo ah" on 5-4-3-2-1, with the ah only coming in on the tonic. I verbally explained the exercise, stateing that I wanted it to be more light on top than on the bottom, then I modeled it for her. I started her on FM and then went down by half-steps. After a few, I added that she should carry her head voice as low as she could, and to pay special attention to not go into "singing mode".

Next I had her do the aborigine squat, both to release her back muscles and to feel the breath low in the body. After about a minute of squatting, we worked on getting the low breaths while sitting. So included in this exercise was working on getting the upper body balanced so that she could feel the correct sensations in her breath. Once she was able to feel the release of her breath, we went back to the "ooo ah" vocalize. She had a much easier sound this around.

Kind of along the same lines as the previous exercise, we did the "ohhh cute puppy dog" sigh. This was to help with the glide/transition from head voice to chest voice. So first I had her do a sigh and then "thee" on 5-4-3-2-1. This wasn't as effective, so after a few we switched. Instead I had her talk in the 'Glinda' voice and tell me about her day, one sentence at a time, and then do "thee" descending. I also told her to do it all in one breath. In other words, don't breath in between the sentence and the "thee". On the third one she had a beautiful released sound, so I stopped and had her decide between the most resent two which one was better and why. She described the good one as being "easy to sing".

*EM chord singing "Ho-w are you, I am fi-ne today" on 8-5-3-1-3-5-8-5-3-1.* I played the chord and then told her to imagine she was on a dock pulling in a big boat all by herself. This imagery helps invite the lower body to be more energized and to get a better suspension in the sound. I instructed her to feel that 'tug' sensation throughout the scale. After a couple I mentioned that she needed more 'dump' release into her body as well. Her sound wasn't focusing very well because she was pulling her tongue back. So I had her think of the foot ball posts on either side of her mouth and that the sound had to stay in front of them. On the vocalize immediately after she used a lot of larynx in the sound in an attempt to focus it. So I pointed it out by modeling what I had heard, and she was able to hear what the difference was between what she did and what I wanted.

Next I had her do a downward sigh ending on a "huh" (which I had to clarify later wasn't suppose to be super low in pitch) and then transition imediately into "thee" on 5-4-3-2-1. There were a lot of instructions so I modeled one for her. She had a much more focused sound and her vibrato was more released and natural.

As for working on the song, I actually did more on helping her learn the piece than anything else. One of the things I had her do was "bop" the notes. She had been a little pitchy and airy in her sound. This was really helpful in getting both of those things to change.

Taylee B. Taessia K. LESSON PLAN 04/08/14

YESTERDAY'S LESSON WAS SO GOOD!! She made so much progress in letting the sound happen, not making it. That was easily the best lesson I have ever had with her. She was right on track with what I would ask for, and she was making connections finally on some of the things we've been working on for a while. We made progress in getting the a better pulse sensation for her to have better "dump moments"/buoyancy. I'm hoping today we can continue to work on this. With tomorrow being the day to perform this, I don't think too much technique can be resolved in such a short amount of time, so I'd like to work on getting more character and emotion in the song.

Short Term: emotion in the song.

Long Term: Low breath gesture.

Taylee B. Taessia K. LESSON PLAN 04/07/14

Well it has been a long time since we've had a lesson. She sang for District Solo and then she got super busy and we haven't met since the lesson just before. I went and watched her performance at districts, and she did an ok job for barely knowing the song. One of her biggest problems with her sound at the competition was she was pushing/wringing herself out and that made her go sharp quite often. This week she is competing in the Preston Bennet Cup, and I've been assured that she has been practicing her song. I'm hoping she has the notes/rhythms/words much better because there isn't much I can do for her if not.

Since there is only today's lesson, and one I'll give tomorrow, before her competition on Wednesday, I want to focus more on pitch correction today. If she knows the song well, this will be easier to address because she'll be more likely to release in the body instead of tightening out of fear of messing up.

Short Term: pitch

Long Term: lower larynx/ breath gesture.

Taylee B. Taessia K. LESSON PLAN 02/01/14

Taessia is very tight (like me). This means that she takes shallow breaths and doesn't relsease her stomach muscles well. She also tends to push her sound a lot to try and compinsate for her voice not being full. Another girl in her grade at school has no problem with this, so Tage often gets compared to this girl's more full sound. We've been working on an Italian song that she is wanting to compete with in March for District Solo. I'm hoping that she has spent some time to learn her notes and rhythms so that I can start working on technique.

Short Term: Work on finding the pulse in the song so that she kind find the dump moments.

Long Term: Work on getting more of a low larynx and a deep low breath.

Sarah Brenay - McKinney - Ch. 2

What are the four elements essential to the existence of sound?A vibrating object, a power source to make the object vibrate, a medium through which the vibrations are transferred, an apparatus to receive the vibrations.

How fast does sound travel? 750 miles per hour

Explain elasticity (as applied to air molecules). If air molecules are forced close together, they fly back apart. If molecules are forced apart, they fly back together again.

Explain compression/rarefaction waves.  Molecules bunch closely together and then spring apart, causing a chain reaction of compression and rarefaction as the molecules bunch together and spring apart in waves.

Does the air actually move at 750 mph?No. Compression and rarefaction waves create a chain reaction in neighboring molecules - those waves travel 750 miles per hour.

Describe the two basic categories into which sounds are divided. Noises and musical tones.

List and describe the five characteristic properties or essential elements of musical tone. duration, pitch, intensity, sonance, timbre.

What are the three essential parts of a musical instrument? What is the function of each? An actuator (furnishes the energy that sets the vibrator in motion, a vibrator (generates a series of sound waves), and a resonator (influences the intensity and/or timbre of the sound waves).

What are the four physical processes required for producing vocal sound? Respiration, phonation, resonation, and articulation.

Define vowel. A vowel is a resonance of the vocal tract.

Define consonant. A sound made with more or less obstruction of the breath stream in its passage outward.

What are the three main reasons that describing vocal sound is problematic? The instrument is internal. The singer only receives information of what is going on through sensations.

Taylee B. Listening Assignmetn #5

A pressed sound:

http://youtu.be/hclPIdDwmQs

A breathy sound:

http://youtu.be/fwvHaBvTg7Q

Taylee B. Katha S. LESSON RECORD/REACTION 04/28/14

Well I felt like Kat made a lot of improvement in this lesson, but I know it's not because of what I said or did. I was really happy that she was getting the help she needed, because I struggled with how to resolve her breathy sound all semester. I felt really dumb though that I had been going about it all wrong and that the two main things covered in this lesson (jaw tension and breath suspension) were never addressed before in my lessons. I felt a little discouraged that I had been so totally off on what I was directing her to do. On the other hand, it made me realize just how important it was for me to be really listening and paying attention to my future students so that I can correctly identify the problems and correct them more efficiently. I really liked that Cindy was so helpful and able to explain things in a way that Kat could understand them. Her sound was so much better than it had ever been after she better understood what her body was doing and what she needed to do differently.

Taylee B. Katha S. LESSON RECORD/REACTIONS 03/14/14

Kat was a bit distracted today since she's going to prom tomorrow, so it was really hard to keep her on task. On top of that, she forgot to bring her music, thus nullifying her homework from the previous lesson.

For vocalizes I had her hum and chew and then go into  "shy" 5-4-3-2-1. As she progressed she had a much clearer tone than she's had before. She mentioned that she's so used to singing low now that that was all that sounded good. I responded with 'interesting', and said that I actually thought her higher notes were more clear then the rest.

*"who's new blue shoes" 8-5-3-1 on EM* I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I thought this would help get a more forward presence. Instead she tended to pull the presence more into her throat. She did lose some of the breathiness in her sound, but at the cost of pushing the sound out. I asked for more happiness and more of a bouncy feeling. Poor Kat is so apologetic, that she kept saying sorry for doing it wrong. I told her that she didn't need to apologize since it had been a while since we had sung together. I then gave her the example of jumping on a tramp to help get her to dump low into her body for the energy. I also used the example of butterflies in her stomach, as if she was really excited about something. After a few more I had her start wiggling her body to try and distract her at the same time as activating her body. This worked really well and she started getting more spin to her sound.

She did mention that I made her nervous by playing the top note of vocalizes too fast. I'm really glad that she thought to say something, since every student is different.

*"thee" 5-4-3-2-1 on FM*
Me: There should still be two dumps in this one. So remember your tramponline feeling.
K: "thee"
Me: that was a little too punchy. It needs to feel down into your body, not like you're forcing it out of your body.
K: "thee"

I had her squat a little bit on each tramp moment and that started helping.

It came time to start working on a song, and since she'd forgotten to bring her music, I thought I'd try to find a hymn that maybe she would know. Finally we realized that she knew silent night, and she asked if she could sing the German lyrics in stead of the English. I thought this was a perfect replacement of her other song, since she would be singing in her native language, and it was a song that was a little more personal and meaningful.


As she sang, she was so much more calm about her singing. I commented to her about how much easier it sounded and looked with her singing. Once we got to the second verse we had a good laugh about how she totally mispronounced a word and I corrected her. She laughed because she's been reading only in English for so long that she couldn't remember how to say "Christ". We had a lot more fun in this lesson then we'd ever had before

Sarah Brenay - Steve Buys - Lesson Record/Reaciton 4/22/14

Record
Steve came pretty late unfortunately. He had forgotten about the lesson entirely. When he arrived I was concerned to hear how raspy and full of gunk his voice was. But oh well! We battle on!
First we did some stretches because Steve generally needs it pretty bad. I did some back stretching exercises. I asked him if he'd had a chance to do them on his own and he said not really.
Then I asked him to tell me what we had discussed about the 6 points of balance. He was able to repeat back the information accurately. I then stood with really horrible posture and asked Steve what I should do to fix it. He did pretty well. He got the obvious things, but missed a few little ones. When he was done, one toe was still turned inwards and my spine was rotated to the lift slightly. But all in all he remembered pretty well.
After that we talked about breathing. I asked him what he knew about the diaphragm. He said he had heard of it and showed me where it is. He had an accurate knowledge of its location, but I wanted to fill him in on its shape and function. I explained that the diaphragm is like a pancake in shape, but domed. It connects around the edges to the lowest ribs. When it contracts it flattens out and the lungs expand to fill the space it left behind... etc etc blah blah blah. I explained how the ribs expand as well to increase the space even more. I told him that the important thing to remember is that we don't breathe in air - we change the space and the air just comes in. We don't have to suck the air in or work for it at all, we just alter internal space. He seamed to be on board with me. We did the breathing exercise where you breathe in for 5 counts and out for 10. Then in for 7 and out for 15 then in for 10 and out for 10, and on and on. I had him exhale on an [s] so that he could control his airflow better. He was expelling much more air than he needed to at first so I told him to make it a tiny little hiss like a kettle just starting to boil. That helped and he was able to do the exercises without feeling uncomfortably low on air or collapsing. Overall Steve improved as we went, but he doesn't have great release on inhale or great control on exhale. I don't really understand this. I am half his size and can exhale for much much longer than he can. I can only guess that this is due to his overall physical fitness, which is not good. If we continue these lessons, I will definitely advise him to exercise. The body is the instrument, and you need to take care of it. I changed over from the [s] to the lip buzz after a few exercises. None of my students have been able to do the lip trill! It is driving me crazy. They can't stop laughing and they can't maintain it for very long at all. Sigh. I just keep telling them to do it on their own and that as they practice it will get easier.
After the breathing exercises we did some vocalizing. I started with sighs and yawns. Steve does pretty well with these. At first he was just gliding down in a few seconds and wasn't sustaining phonation. I asked him if he could take his time descending. He did well with that instruction. Steve does really well going higher without constricting on sighs and yawns. After that we started doing "Father, feather, fever." We start by speaking, and then we inflect it, elevate it, and sing it on a 54321 pattern. I noticed that he was moving his jaw in really weird ways. I told him to go look in the mirror and tell me what he saw. He picked up on the jaw right away. I had him tilt his head back and try to release those jaw closing muscles. His jaw stopped moving side to side while he sang after that, but it still looked very held. I asked him how he felt. He said it was better because he was "holding it open." Which was telling. I explained that we don't have to hold the jaw. I used the "drop your arm" example. I explained that if we hold the jaw open we are just tensing in the other direction and tension in either direction is undesirable for singing. We kept trying. After a while, Cindy came over and helped Steve balance his A-O joint. He was shortening his neck in the back. I was really impressed by the change! He looked very different, much more confident. The sound was a little more full, but as he is all gunky today it's harder to hear. I had him wiggle his head around while we did some descending exercises. If he stopped moving, he was holding.
We moved on to "Someone Like You." I had him sing the first lines, but it sounded very low for him today. I transposed it higher. I noticed that he was holding he neck and jaw in place. I told him to dust Cindy's office. We got him a duster and he walked around dusting. He did really well, changing levels and directions often. It looked great, but it didn't show in his sound as much as it might have if he were less congested. After going through the first section a few times Cindy told me to keep transposing it around. We did this a few times and then we were out of time.

Reaction
I don't connect with Steve very well still. I think it just takes time with some students. I really like his voice though and I think he is retaining a lot of the things we are talking about. I'm just not sure he's as dedicated to improving his voice as he could be. Which is totally fine! It just makes him teaching him a little bit awkward.
Anyway I think this lesson went ok. I had some good ideas. I'm displeased with myself for missing the A-O imbalance. I never catch onto those when they shorten in the back. Rats! I know now that that's a blind spot. I think next time (if there is a next time. it's up to Steve.) I'll have him lie on the floor for  a little while or do ragdoll.

Sarah Brenay - Steve Buys - Lesson Record 4/15/14

Record

Steve really wrecked his legs doing some crazy percussion piece where he had to crawl around a lot. So he's in a lot of pain and couldn't stand well. He kept buckling! It was awful. I had him sit, of course, telling him to choose between the ball and the big black computer chair and a piano bench.

S: Alright lets do some stretches though because I'm sure your back is in bad shape.

We stretch for a while. Shoulders forward and back. 

S: That probably feels very uncomfortable

Steve: No I'm good.

S: Oh really? Ok good. Now the neck. Hey funny - I can touch my ear to my shoulder on this side, but not this side.

Steve: There's some tension there!

S: Maybe I'm in worse shape than you are. Ok can you just flop down (ragdoll)? Let your head just feel like it's hanging.

When I see Steve do this, his head does not look like it's hanging at all. But he has a very different body than I do, so I couldn't tell what was going on. He said he felt like he was releasing it. 

S: So we'll stay seated today. Have you been staying hydrated?

Steve: Ya I've been keeping one of those sports sized Gatorade bottles in my fridge full of water.

S: Good! Good. Im going to keep stretching my neck, feel free to do so. Do you remember our discussion - I know it was a while ago - about the 6 points of balance? 

Steve looks confused.

S: Oh no we talked about the A-O joint. What can you tell me about that?

Steve: Uh most people think the spine connects to the skull in the back, but it actually connects right in the middle of the head between the ears, so most people put their head forward most of the time when really the ears should be over the shoulders.

S: Right right. And a lot of people tend to overcorrect when they sing and they pull their head too far back. And neither is good. Yours looks pretty good, let me see from the side. Good that looks good does it feel released?

Steve: Ya.

S: Ok so there are 5 more points of balance. Your posture is pretty good but I'm going to go through them really lickity split here.

Steve: My posture's only good when I'm really trying to keep it upright. Most of the time its awful!

S: Ya so is everybodies. So 6 points of balance. You have the A-O joint, then the shoulders. This is to make sure you're not caving your shoulders forward, which is how most people stand.

I show him the toaster thing. 

S: The shoulders center directly over the ribs. They hang from the shoulder girdle. It's when our pectorals are tense that we pull them in and it becomes a problem, right? So that looks pretty good, how does that feel to you?

Steve: Fine.

S: Good so the next is the relationship between the upper and lower vertebrae. 

I show him standing properly and improperly. Steve stands up and does it too. 

S: So the next point is the hip joint. Where would you say your hips are. They're actually much lower I'm going to find an image.

I look up the skeleton on google and show Steve.

Steve: So the part I thought was the hips is that bone there... and there's the hip joint. Funny thing it's right were your legs bends!

S: Hahah ya funny thing!

Steve: I know right?

S: Now this is where people run into trouble when they try to bend at the waist. As you can see in the picture, there's no joint here. Curving the vertebrae too far is bad for your back. So next we have the knees. There are 3 positions for the knees. We have bent (I model), locked ( model), and balanced ( I model). And if you had been in choir they would have told you to "bend at the knees" so you don't lock them and pass out, you might have heard that with band too. 

Steve: Ya I have.

S: Ya, but you don't have to bend your knees,so

Steve: You just have to release them.

S: That's right so can you show me bent?

Steve tries and almost falls over.

Steve: Nope. Those muscles say no. 

S: Haha woah ok never mind, can you show me locked? Ok and then find that position that's just released and balanced. Let me show you another image.

I look up the knee joint and show him how the femur and tibia stand like a column or pile of blocks.

S: They just rest on top of each other. So you don't need any muscular exertion to keep the body upright. The body just kind of sets on each other like a bunch of blocks. It's designed in a very crafty way in fact! So that when you're standing with correct alignment, you should be using

Steve: You should be able to stand all day.

S: Ha well I know I can't but there shouldn't be muscular fatigue. If you feel muscular fatigue or tension from standing, then something's out of alignment probably, you know. So the next balance point is the ankle joint. As you can see the joint is here, forward from the heel. If you try to stand on your heel, you'll feel like you're going to fall back. So the weight is actually balanced like on a tripod on these points (I show him).
Steve: Ok ya that makes sense.
Sarah:  Alright awesome so lets review, give me a brief rundown of the 6 points of balance.
Steve: There's the... I don't remember the name, the neck joint that's in the middle of the ears.
S: Ya it's called the atlanto occipital joint or A-O joint for short.
Steve: Right, and it's in the middle of your head. Then there's the shoulders and they just... wiat they just hang there right?
S: ya ya that's right.
Steve: Then there's the relationship of the lower back to the upper back. Then there's the hip joint, which is here, not here. (He points to his hip joint and then to his waist). The knees, they have three positions - locked, bent, and balanced. And then the feet are like a tripod and you don't want to put your weight to far forward or to far back.
Sarah: Excellent work Steve! Really good. Alrighty well lets get singing then! Can you do some yawns for me?
(We did yawns, changing pitch range and duration. I find that if you add the stretching it really helps. Probably it helps posturally and to stretch the jaw and get the mouth open. We also did some sighs. I don't think this one helps as much but it can be cued to make an [u] that is closer to singing.)
Sarah: Good now lets do some beeps!
(We do [bip bip bip bip bip] on 54321 and then 13531 patterns. Steve does really well with these. His ear is good and his sound is clear when he doesn't have time to contort it, so the beeps work really well.)
Sarah: Great! Have we done much speak-to-sing stuff?
Steve: Um I don't know.
Sarah: Did we do "Father, feather, fever?"
Steve: Nope.
S: Great! Well we're going to. Say "Father."
Steve: Father
(We do a couple of these at different pitch levels and amplitudes, but still just speaking.)
S: Ok now this time we will elongate it. "Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaather."
Steve: "Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaather."
(We do a few more)S: Good, now lets inflect it.
(We bend the pitch around more, as though asking "Father?" as a question. We start high and end low, and just mess with it generally. I start livening it up by reacting to the way he says "Father" and answering a "Father" back that is dramatic and silly. Steve joins in and we have some laughs.)
S: Now we elevate it to a higher pitch.

(I have Steve start the word higher in his voice but don't give him a pitch yet. I just have him say it like a descending sigh. He starts somewhere around C4. I play B3 and have him start the word on that note and sigh down, but it's still very speech-like at this point.)

S: Awesome, now "Father" 54321 (this time I sing it.)

Steve: "Father" 54321

(This time Steve's voice changed drastically. As his brain switched to "command-sing.")

S: Let's do another one. (we go down a half step and do the process again but a little faster. Just a few repetitions of "Father" on speak, elongate, inflect, and elevate. His voice makes a dramatic switch again.)

S: Now do you feel or hear any difference between your speech and the last one you did?

Steve: Um I don't know. 

S: Let's go back to speaking and try again. (we do a super condensed version of the exercise.)

Steve: Oh ya I noticed a difference that time!

S: Ok lets go back to speech. (We do the sigh like descending "Fathers" on different pitches, moving around chromatically. We do the sigh and then we do the 54321 pattern. It's still changing quite a bit, but now Steve is more aware of it.)

S: Now you see what's happening is you've developed a lot of extra, unnecessary physical actions that, in your mind accompany singing. When your brain thinks "command-sing," your body is going, "Oh now it's time to sing, this has to sound like singing" and then all these extra muscles work and create tension in your voice and body. 

Steve: Haha "command-sing" I like it!

S: Ya it's a good way to explain it, I got it from Cindy. 

Steve: Oh really?

S: Ya - it's the perfect way to think of it. See, what we need to do is replace all those extra functions that come up with "command-sing." So instead lets try "command-speak" or "command-phonate." 

Steve: That makes sense. Of course my body is so tense right now it's impossible for me to get comfotable.

S: Oh man Steve! You should lie down maybe, would that help?

Steve: Uh I don't know probably.

S: Ya why don't you lie down here. I'll grab something for your head.

Steve: No I'm ok.

S: It's actually much better for your body alignment to have your head supported. Here ya go. Now can you bend your legs and lay your arms to the side? That looks good, is that comfortable?

Steve: Ya that's pretty good.

S: Ok great. Now just stay there and let's continue the exercise.

(We go through more "Father"s and then switch to "Fever" and "Feather." Steve gets really good at telling the difference and he starts to close the gap between the sounds.)

S: Steve this is sounding much closer to speech, how does it feel?

Steve: Um I don't know? I guess I can feel the vibrations.

S: Does the speech and the singing still feel different? Let's do some more and just be aware of the feeling. Don't try to change anything, just be aware and report back.

(We do some more.)

S: What do you think?

Steve: Well things feel the same to me.

S: Good that's the goal! Alright well we're out of time. But that would be a great way to practice as well, just take one line at a time and speak-elongate-inflect-elevate.

Steve: Ok!

S: Thanks Steve, good work!

 

 

Reaction

I feel really really good about this lesson! Steve got a lot of useful information and started to really hear what was going on with his voice. I think the "command-phonate" vs "command-sing" example really made sense to him. If he really wants to sing, he has a long way to go. But he's musical and has good raw material to work with, so if he wants to he can get pretty darn good. I had a lot of fun with this lesson! Woohooo!  

Taylee B. Katha S. LESSON PLAN 03/14/14

It has been a while since I saw Kat last. I know I gave her homework to work on understanding the text, so we'll see what will come of that. I've talked to her, outside of lessons when I go to visit my parents, about choir and if she was feeling better about it. She was grateful for our chat and she feels a lot more comfortable. I didn't hear how this effected her singing since I just asked about this in conversation, so I'm going to try and listen for how all of our talking about choir singing effects her solo singing--especially how she describes how she feels when she's singing.

Short Term: Work on emotion in the song

Long Term: Energy in the body.

Taylee B. Katha S. LESSON RECORD/REACTIONS 02/17/14

Kat was so awesome about her homework! She took it very seriously and did a really awesome job!! I maybe fixed one or two of the marks she made, but overall I was really impressed. She made really thoughtful decisions about why she should breath in certain places and we had a good talk about why certain breaths were taken, both for technical aspects as well as character choices.

I started her doing a few downward sighs on "oo". Next, I tried the lip buzzes again. Now that she was more comfortable with me, she was able to not be so silly in trying them and she was able to do them. I had her lip buzz first and then add sound after. Though she was now comfortable with lip buzzing in front of me, she was so concentrated on keeping her lips going, that it just got in the way when she had to add sound. So I moved on and had her to "shy" on 5-4-3-2-1. I started these on FM and then moved down sequentially by a half step. It got a little caught in her throat, so I had her talk really nasally to get the sound more forward. Then I had her do the 5-4-3-2-1 on a nasally "na na na na na". This war really effective in getting her tone more focused and less throaty. I extended the vocalize to the octave, which was good but could have been better if I was more rehearsed on my scales. THANK HEAVENS we were at my apartment, because she made a lot of improvement because she wasn't so worried about being overheard.


When we started singing, and I could tell that she had really practiced on the notes and rhythms and that marking the breaths had gotten her really familiar with the song. One of the things I noticed that she did still that inhibited a good breath, was that she held out her notes longer than necessary. She took gaspy breaths because she held the previous note so long that she wasn't able to take full advantage of the rests. Also along those lines--and I'm definitely still guilty of doing this--even when she had plenty of time to breath, she would wait till just before she sang to take a breath. This resulted in shallow noisy breaths. First I addressed her too long notes, as I figured this would help her realize that she had plenty of time to breath. She still would take the high bucket breaths every once in a while, but if I gave her a quick reminder, she was really good about being more relaxed.

Another thing we worked on was distinguishing the feeling of each register. There is the few times in this song that there is that really low note, and I talked to her about how it wouldn't, and shouldn't, feel the same as the notes that were a little higher.

This lesson was pretty short because they had gotten to my house a little late and needed to get back for some plans they had in Preston. But I was really happy with how this lesson went, and that I didn't come away so frustrated with her.

Taylee B. Katha S. LESSON PLAN 02/17/14

I'm hoping to encorporate more emotion in the learning process of Kat's song. She's very disconected with what she's saying, and I know I do much better with technique when I'm emoting, so I'm hoping the same thing for her. Also I need to check on the homework I gave her of marking where to breath. I asked her to pay attention to where it would make sense both by how long she'll have been singing and what will make sense grammatically. We'll see how that goes.

Short Term: Incorporate feelings and emotion in her song.

Long Term: Keeping a low larynx throughout and energizing the lower body.

Taylee B. Katha S. LESSON RECORD/REACTIONS 02/01/14

I started this lesson by having her do the Aborigine squat, so that she could get a better idea of how breath should feel. She tends to belly breath and I wanted her to feel it in her back, even though it wouldn't feel the same when she was standing. I also talked about what is meant by a deep breath and how it doesn't mean big in the chest area.

Next we did some yawns. The first vocalize was "who" descending on 5-4-3-2-1. She was really breathy in this exercise so I had her do the "wow" thing (ask her to say wow like she's really impressed with something--to get a more focused tone). She didn't end up doing it well because unfortunately we were at my parent's house again. Here I took a minute to talk about how in speech we're not paying attention to how we're doing it, we just do it. That same easiness and feeling of "just doing it" should be in our singing.

*CM 8-5-3-1 on "Ho-w are you"* (I'm realizing now that I am picking very aspirite sounds for a singiner who tends to be breathy anyway. Bad on my part.) She did a couple and they didn't sound the best, so she said:

K: I'm doing it wrong, right?
Me: No you're doing fine. Don't worry so much about whether or not you're doing it right. Sometimes when I'm I'm doing a vocalize, I'm not necessarily looking for perfect pitch, but for correct placement. So just allow yourself to just do it. So I'll play the note just above the note you'll sing and I want you to just think that note and allow it to fall into the right place on the real note you'll sing. *DM 8-5-3-1 "Ho-w are you?"*

She did better with me playing the pitch above. Her larynx wouldn't rise to try and make the pitch, and she had a much easier sound. My mom was listening from the kitchen and happened to ask why I was playing the scale with a note that didn't belong, so that was good because I was able to explain my thought process out loud for Kat.

I tried the chewing your food while humming thing, though I'm not sure why I chose to do that. Probably because I was drawing a blank for something to actually work on what she needed. Luckily I moved on from that quickly. I asked for "nee nay nah noh noo" as well probably for the same reason as the food thing. (Side note: I'm really glad that we talked a lot in class about having a purpose in mind for the vocalizes we choose. In my earlier lessons, I'm noticing a lot of random vocalizes that I only choose to do because I'm not sure what else to do.)

We started singing "I Dreamed A Dream" in this lesson. This was a much better song choice as far as comfortable range (minus the really low note). She would run out of breath before each phrase and I could see her trying to rest her hand on her stomach and push her hand out with her breath. She also scooped up into her notes a lot. To address the scooping, I had her "bop" the melody. LOADS of improvement!! She had a much more focused tone and her pitch was much better. Next I had her speak the whole song as if she were in a play and this was a line, not a song. It was a little helpful, but her inflections and rhythms were different because English is her second language. To end the lesson, I gave her homework to go through the song and mark places where she could potentially breath, thus giving her places to mentally look forward too so she wasn't panicking at the end of every phrase.

Taylee B. Katha S. LESSON PLAN 02/01/14

The last lesson was full of challenges, most of which were caused by the environment. For this next lesson I hope to begin working on a song that is more long term. Also build more trust between her and I so that she will be more willing to try more things without feeling akward in front of me.

Short Term: find energizing vocalizes that still do the job but without being embarressing.

Long Term Goal: Get more involvement of energy from lower body and focus the tone from its current breathy timbre.

Taylee B. Katha S. LESSON RECORD/REACTIONS 01/25/14

I felt very exposed for this lesson, since I knew she had taken lessons before, and I hadn't heard her sing my whole life like my other student. To start out, we tried lip buzzes--tried being the operative word. She wasn't able to do lip buzzes very well, though I think that was more due to her being shy and silly about them. So I asked if she could do raspberries, and that was a no as well. Little did I know this would be the beginning of a very difficult process of finding a vocalize that was something she could relate to (the "Glinda the Good Witch" thing didn't make any sense to her since she didn't see it in English and hear the original voice) and also one that she was willing to do. This struggle was present in pretty much every lesson...

Another struggle we had at this lesson was the fact that it was done at my parents house. There are two reasons this was a problem. First, my parents house is really open. So you can hear everybody, including my mom cooking dinner, my dad on the phone, and pretty much anything happening upstairs. The second reason is related to the first in that Kat was already bashful enough without an audience being there to listen. Since we could hear everything they were doing, they could hear everything we were doing.

We started this lesson with the "Hey Mom!" thing.  We tried it up in the head voice, and then used it to transition into saying "5 4 3 2 1", which was then segued into the descending vocalize of 5-4-3-2-1. I started in FM and then did random keys. Overall she did pretty well, though sometimes she would try to use chest voice too high, and I would just remind her to use her high voice. Another thing I did was I decided to have her do the sound of indecision and then do the descending 5-4-3-2-1 and then just go down by half-step instead of random keys. They were going really well until she did two really different. Here I stopped and asked her what was different about the one she just did compared to the one before it.

K: I was more in tune on the second one because my jaw was in better position.
Me: Interesting. I really liked the first one because you had a much more prepared in your inhale and your "huh" was more natural.

I dropped down a whole step from the one we just ended on, and had her start again but to not be so careful like she was on the one she just did. She started getting bashful and silly again, so I had her close the "uhh" to "mmm". That seemed to work better (also I started doing random keys again).

I played an FM triad and asked her to start on "oo" and then on the bottom note say "ah". I also instructed her to start really light on the high note and then let it fall into heaviness. After a couple, I realized she wasn't doing the light or heavy very well, so I gave her an example of the sound you make when you see a really cute puppy--"Oooohhhh!" This helped a little bit in the sound, but she still acted weird as soon as I associated it to something emotional (I think that's when she gets the most uncomfortable and starts being weird about the exercises). She got a couple good ones in at the end, so I thought that it was a good place to end the vocalizes.

For the song part, we worked on "Empty Chairs and Empty Tables" from Les Mis. She was really quiet and breathy, so I had her try and just doo thinking it was because she didn't know the words super well. It helped a little. I then told her to think of herself just speaking the doo's. That helped even more. Here I asked her to tell me what part of that page she liked that best in her singing. She thankfully picked the same spot I was thinking, and I figured out that she had a better sense of tonality there because I played the accompaniment best there. Another thing I tried was to have her do monkey sounds on the rests in between each phrase. I made sure she knew that it didn't have to be in time and that I wouldn't play on until I knew she was ready with a good breath. It sort of worked, and maybe would have worked better in a more private space.

Once we got to the middle section of the song, I realized that this song wasn't a good idea for her. It is written for a tenor and therefore a soprano must sing pretty high to still sing it. She wasn't ready for the large leaps and the higher notes just yet. We decided we would try a different song the next lesson, and it was here she told me that she had always wanted to sing "I dreamed a dream". I glanced through it and figured it didn't have big leaps or too high of notes and agreed.

Taylee B. Katha S. LESSON PLAN 01/25/14

This will be the first 'normal' lesson, since the last time I had to do the questions. Since I knew she had taken lesson before, I asked if she wanted to continue working on a song from those lessons. She wasn't sure she would be able to get a hold of the music, but asked instead if we could work on a song from 'Les Mis". I was unsure of what to do as far as rep, so due to the fact that it was a song we both knew, I was happy to let her.

So for today's lesson, I would like to work on her breath and her lower body engagement. When she sang through her piece at the last lesson, it was airy and a little pitchy. I know she can match pitch, so I know it is due to her breath support.

Short Term Goal: not really sure about this one yet. I'll have to wait until after this lesson.

Long Term: Better breath support/energy in sound

Taylee B. Katha S. LESSON RECORD/REACTIONS 02/21/14

Today's lesson was really short due to the fact that the first 7-8 minutes we were talking about some of the things she had recently been doing in choir and how she felt they were contradicting with our lessons. I can relate with her since I often think back on some of the instructions Mr. Seare gave us and how they are totally weird when I think about what I know now. One of the big things that I tried helping her understand is that teaching technique in a choir setting is much harder. Not only is he trying to watch how everyone reacts to his instructions, but he is trying to say them in a way that 30 different people can understand. Another thing we talked about, was how choir teachers are looking for a good sound as a whole, not from each individual per say. I encouraged her to try to listen to what he asked them to do, but always be aware of how she would feel when she tried to follow the instruction. If she ever felt like she was getting more tense or doing something that didn't feel good and released, I encouraged her to just politely stop, and just mime the exercise. (Though in her defense, I know that some of the technique he teaches is completely off base with what I have learned over the course of my studying).

Today I had a hard time getting Kat to focus on singing. With her so confused about Mr. Seare's intention in choir, and how they were not seeming to line up with what I was teaching, she was little bit chatty and not wanting to focus (kind of a bummer since our last lesson was so good). However, we did get a better understanding of choir lessons versus individual lessons, so that was still helpful.

I find it hard to believe that I waited till this lesson to talk about balance in the body. I know I talked to Tage about this, but I was giving all of this info to Kat for the first time. I talked about the function of the bones being to give shape and to be the weight baring part of the body. I then moved into the six places of balance: where they were; what order to address them; what incorrect placement does to the rest of the body; etc. I also talked about how we tend to think that we need to feel our muscles working in order to feel like we're singing, and how that mentality is false. I'm pretty sure we got talking about all of this because she was really creeped out by Mr. Seare asking them to massage each others shoulders as part of a warm up in class. I'm not sure if that's totally unheard of in Germany, or if she's just has a large personal bubble. Regardless, it was really funny seeing her reaction to me telling her that massaging tight muscles is actually really beneficial.

For the vocalize portion I started with her singing "shy" on 5-4-3-2-1. I asked her to sing this in her little kid voice (so as to keep it light and not push the sound out). I've said before to her that we need to imagine pitch coming to us, but I explained myself a little more today (there was a lot of talking in today's lesson, so maybe Kat's attention deficit was partially my fault). I had her start on FM and work her way down by half steps.

After this vocalize was over, there was only about 6 minutes left in the lesson, so I decided to go into singing her song. I figured she would enjoy that more. Her tone was more focused today, but it didn't seem purposeful. As homwork, I asked her to practice speaking the text so that she would really understand what she was saying and why.

Taylee B. Taessia K. LESSON RECORD/REACTIONS 02/21/14

Before starting to sing, I asked her a few questions about her day, and what kind of vocal use she had done. Mostly I was trying to size up what her body language was telling me as far as where tension was and what was having a hard time releasing. I discovered that the reason she has really tight shoulders and neck--more so on the day she has lessons--is because she has ballroom practice right before she comes to voice lessons. We then talked about ways that she can still have good form in ballroom, but that won't be forced into position--thus creating the tension. She agreed that she could work on being more aware of how her movements were affecting her body in general when she wasn't dancing.

After our chat we worked on finding balance. Starting at the head and working our way down, I tried to help her find a correct posture. I payed close attention to what she would say in response, and then tried to address those areas. I talked about how good posture would feel weird at this point because her body wouldn't be used to it. I then challenged her to pay attention to how she sat outside of our lessons and to apply what we talked about today.

I'd say a vast majority of this lesson was dedicated to becoming more acquainted with our body and how to react to it.

To start the vocalize portion, I had her do some yawns and then some sighs, with the sighs varying in length and pitch. The main idea behind these sighs was to achieve simplicity.

*"oo ah" starting on the 5th degree and gliding on "oo" to the tonic where you would say "ah"*
-FM was beginning chord and then I went down by half-steps until about AM. Then I went back up to EM and sequenced down again. At the beginning she would nod her head down as she would descend down the scale. When I went back to EM the first time, her larynx went really high going from the A and then the quick transition to E. I had her imagine standing next to freshly blooming lilacs before singing. (I realize now that that isn't the best way to address a high larynx, but rather problems with the nasopharynx). It took me a while to catch this before I addressed it, but she was really only singing the 5th degree and then the tonic. I didn't handle this very well. I told her to imagine falling through the scale and the pitches. That itself was good, but as I'm listening back, the way I played the piano was not conducive to the sound i was asking her for. Would giving her a visual help withh this next time? Something like a trombone and have her imagine its slide motion. I also think maybe a hands on approach of pretending like she is eating string cheese and she is peeling off a new strip with each vocalize. I mentioned in the lesson that she was doing weird things, but most of the things she was doing incorrectly were due to my teaching that day. This lesson, if nothing else, taught me just how much a student picks up whether or not we intend them to.

I tried making up this vocalize of having her do "fine" on 8-5-3-1, and that was a huge fail. Finally she asked if maybe she could try lying down. Here I had her do "Who's new blue shoes". It worked ok. She started to apologize and I realized that she had nothing to apologize about, because it was my responsibility to come up with effective vocalizes. Maybe I had given her too much info on body mapping before, because she also mentioned that she felt uncomfortable in her own body. That was a big red flag for me, and I decided to just have her shake it out because I was giving her too many things to "do" and not enough of an opportunity to "let". After she wiggled around a bit, I simplified things and told her that I only wanted her to think about two things: 1. We provide air and 2. Pitch happens. That ended up being her homework since her lesson time was up.

Taylee B. Taessia K. LESSON RECORD/REACTIONS 03/07/14

Funny side note about this lesson. I forgot to turn off the recorder after the lesson was over. So after the lesson was over, I left for school. That means there is like 3 or so hours of silence on this thing. HA!

So I need to explain some background stuff about Tage so that the first part of our lesson makes sense. She has had some strange, concerning things happen during her periods for the last couple of months. She's been passing out, and on one occasion she had a seizure. After anything crazy like that happens, the rest of her period is beyond miserable, due to the fact that she feels like she has the flu the whole time and has terrible cramps. Today's lesson happened to be on a day during her period, and she'd actually all but passed out earlier in the day. The only reason we were still having a lesson was because District Solo competition was close and she was less than prepared.

So to start off the lesson, I talked about how although she was in a lot of pain, she should still try to be as aligned as possible, since singing out of alignment is practically worthless. Before the lesson had started, she took some Alieve hoping that after a while she would be able to be more involved. Once that was taken care of, I had her massage her jaw and then sit on the exercise ball.

Me: *played FM triad-demonstrated "shy" on 5-4-3-2-1* (Just as she was about to start, she took a gaspy breath).

Me: Oh wait, breath through your nose with a lilac tree breath. *FM chord*
Together: "Shy" *EM*
T: "shy" *EbM*
T: "shy" *DM*
T: "shy" *DbM*
T: "shy"
Me: I want you to think about... well first breath all your air out  because you're trying to stuff more air in each time, but when you are about to sing, I want you to feel like you don't stop inhaling. *Demonstration* That same sensation of the low larynx and the release in the body--not like a no energy in the body-- it's energized while you're breathing in. That same sensation needs to carry over when you're starting to phonate. *DbM*
T: "shy" *CM*
T: "shy" *BM*
Me: That one was better. It didn't look so grabby in the throat. *BM*
T: "shy"
Me: that was your best one. *FM*
T: "shy"
Me: speech like *EM*
T: "shy"
Me: better *EbM*
T: "shy"

I noticed that she was jutting her jaw forward, so I had her try *EbM* again with me having told her about the jaw. It was a little better, but then I had her rest her hand on her jaw for the rest of the vocalize to remind her to not let the jaw forward. I also noticed that I need to better explain that each pitch in the 5-4-3-2-1 scale is created through thought. She would have a great first note, but then she tried to make each pitch afterwards as she descended. The definition of each pitch is a result of thought, not consciously moving our vocal folds to the next desired pitch.

Me: *EM triad with octave for "Who's new blue shoes"-I demonstrated it for her*

Throughout this vocalize I noticed that she was squeezing for the top note as well as modifying the vowel so that it turned to "hose" instead of "who's". So to combat this, I would have her speak it, then sing the exercise. Also we talked about the correct way to form the [u] vowel, so that one can avoid the "cache valley 'ewe' sound" in the [u].

The next exercise I chose was "ooo whop ooo". Starting on tonic, imagine "throwing your voice" up to the octave--where you put the "whop"--and then descend back down on "ooo". I chose this so that she would get the sensation that her voice was out in front of her, and that she couldn't control it. She had a really hard time not controlling this exercise. Even after trying to fix a few things in between each attempt, this wasn't helping her at all, unfortunately.

So to end on a good note, I had her do "A B C D 5-4-3-2-1" on a descending 5 note scale. This exercise has helped her in the past to not be so involved in her singing. I try to put the speech like "A B C D" next to singing so that she can associate the freedom she naturally has in speech with the singing.

After this, she was finally starting to feel the Alieve kick in, but she needed to take some time to stretch out her back and release some of the muscles in that area.

For the remainder of the song we worked on getting her to release into the sound and not try to make it. She still didn't really know the song well, so she was often trying to stop. I decided that I wanted her to practice just going on, so that she wouldn't mylinate stopping when she messed up. We also worked on getting into character and selling the emotion of the piece.

Taylee B. Katha S. LESSON RECORD/REACTIONS 01/17/14

So I forgot to turn on my recording until after I asked my first question, but I can tell I asked about choir. She talked about how she was in the Women's choir, and that she was singing alto. She didn't seem to thrilled about being an alto.

Me: What kind of style of music do you like to sing?
K: I've done modern and classical
Me: You took lessons before coming here, right?
K: Yes.
Me: And how long were you taking them for?
K: Two years.
Me: What kind of songs did you work on?
K: I did a lot of musical songs.
Me: Okay, how long into your life do you want to sing for?
K: I think it would be nice if I could like sing to my kids for bed and not kill them with my voice. I think I always want to sing because it is a great way of expressing yourself.
Me: Good! I like that! You play violin, do you play any other instrument/
K: Sometimes I play the guitar, and sometimes the piano, but just tiny pieces.
Me: Okay, so how good is your sight reading and stuff like that? On any instrument, not necesarrily singing.
K: Not very good... I try but...
Me: You do know, though, which line of the staff is C and things like that right?
K: Yeah
Me: So it's just not a really developed skill?
K: Yeah
Me: That's ok, that's just fine. Do you have any performance experience with any instrument/voice?
K: Does in front of my family count?
Me: yeah. So just around the house then?
K: Yeah
Me: So then no formal settings, like a recital?
K: No, not really.
Me: What are things that you like about your voice?
K: I don't know... Sometimes it sounds really good, but sometimes it doesn't.... I don't know, I never think of that.
Me: Okay, well then what is something you would like to improve on then?
K: I don't sing alto.
Me: You would like to improve your higher range then?
K: Yeah, I told Mr. Seare that I don't like alto, and he still put me as an alto. I don't like to sing deep because the parts are so boring. It's like the same note the whole time.
Me: I know you're not super involved in a million things, but what is a typical day for you.
K: Well I get up and get ready for school, I read scriptures with the family, I go to ballroom practice with Taessia in the mornings before school, then I have school. After I come home and do homework and just do things around the house.
Me: Well I know you must talk a lot living with my mom and dad. Hahaha So do you shower in the morning before you go upstairs for scriptures?
K: Usually.
Me: A really great place to warm-up the voice is in the shower. If that is one of the first things you do in a day, it's a great way to ease into using your voice. Do you think you would be willing to try some lip buzzes each morning while you shower?
K: Sure that would be fine. 

This next part of the lesson was tricky. She didn't have any music to bring of the songs she was working on in Germany, or even knew well for that matter. I would have just had her sing a hymn or a nursery rhyme, but she's not American so she didn't know anything like American lullabies or something that would be commonly known here. I think we finally found a hymn that she knew, luckily. After hearing her sing, I decided that she had some misconceptions about where breath goes and what it does for you when singing. She seemed pretty fixated on getting her belly to bulge out, which I'm guessing her last teacher told her to do. Also she was very breathy, and had zero energy in her lower body. So for the remainder of the lesson, we talked about getting the body properly balanced, and we worked on some breathing techniques that helped her to be less conscious about it and fix some of her poor conceptions about it.

Taylee B. Taessia K. LESSON RECORD/REACTIONS 01/17/14

Me: Okay Tage, do you intend to keep singing past highschool?
T: Yes...?
Me: What kind of singing are you thinking of? Do you want to minor in singing, major in singing....
T: I would like to take classes, but not minor. Well maybe I could do that too
Me: Okay, what kind of styles would you like to be singing?
T: I like classical.
Me: You still like it then? Okay.
T: That's what I've been doing for forever (all her lessons--both by me and other teachers--up till this point), and I don't know anything else. Hahaha
Me: So health concerns... Mom and Dad told me that they finally figured out why you've been kind of a hobo. 
T: Yes
Me: So apparently all of your behavior lately is a reaction to a concussion you had?
T: What?
Me: Yeah that's what Mom and Dad said.
T: I was not informed of this. Hahaha
Me: What kind of stuff do you do at school? Like what is your daily routine?
T: I take an online class, go to English, choir, go to EMT class, lunch, then physics, history, and seminary. That's school.
Me: Besides ballroom, do you have anything else that you do?
T: Singing!
Me: So you sing in choir, you sing in church...
T: And I'm in that girls A cappella group now, and Jazz choir.
Me: Okay, on a scale of 1-10, 1 being only responding to questions and keeping your answers super small, and 10 being you initiate conversations and could talk for hours and hours, how much would you say you talk in a day?
T: In a day?
Me: Yeah, on a scale of 1-10. Or at least your need to talk.
T: My need to talk... I guess a 7 or 8.
Me: Okay, so you really like to talk but you don't feel like every second needs to be filled with talking.
T: Yes.
Me: Okay, um, because of school and ballroom and now you're in a lot of singing groups, um would y;ou say that you're current daily routine requires you to talk a lot--on a scale of 1-10?
T Like an 8 or a 9.
Me: Okay, do you talk a lot at ballroom?
T: Yeah, a fair amount.
Me: Okay, I'm just trying to gauge health wise where your vocal folds are at.
T: Well I talk a lot at ballroom; I talk a lot in English; and then singing--obviously in choir; and then Mom's class I do a lot of talking because there is a lot of discussion; and shockingly a lot in physics; and then a lot in Seminary.
Me: Okay, well I already know a lot of these questions about you anyway...
T: Such as?
Me: What music you listen to, stuff like that.
T: Oh
Me: So what do you expect from these lessons? What kind of things do you expect from me as your teacher?
T: I don't know, I guess I want to improve...
Me: Well what things specifically?
T: My volume, and um I dunno, control (this is where I'm thinking "interesting").
Me: Okay, name three things about your voice that you like.
T: That one's hard. My singing voice or my talking voice?
Me: Um, you can do either, I guess. But if you do speaking they have to be specific.
T: Um, I dunno, sometimes I like my inflections.
Me: Your inflections? Like your emotion in a speaking context?
T: Yes. Um...
Me: Think more on the singing side, because I am a singing teacher.
T: When I'm on, I'm really on, like in my deeper register...
Me: I don't know what you mean necessarily...
T: Like I think I can produce a really rich sound in my lower range.
Me: So you really like your lower range? It's comfortable to you?
T: Yes, not like super low...
Me: Just the low part of your range.
T: Yes. And when I get it, I really like my high notes. They're not consistant...
Me: what about that specifically? Like when you're singing and you think your getting it, what kind of feeling would you describe that to be?
T: It sounds clear; and, like, full, even though it's high; and effortless.
Me: Perfect! So I like the effortless part of your description, because that's something you can gauge really well. As far as aurally about yourself, your body is actually designed in a way that protects you from your own sound, so that you don't blow your own eardrums out.
T: Yay!
Me: So because of the way our body is shaped, our mouth is in front of our ears, so we never hear what we actually sound like. So it's hard to gauge how well we sound as we're singing. There are ways to do it, like singing to a wall, so you kind-of get a little feedback. But the best way to tell how you're doing is by feel. So I really like that you can feel that effortlessness and sense of ease. To start of today's lesson, does your voice feel tired at all?
T: It's all right.
Me: How much voice have you used today?
T: Not a lot.
Me: Okay, have you done any singing at all?
T: Yes, singing in the car to the radio on the way here.
Me: Can you sense anywhere in your body, right now, that feels tight?
T: My shoulders, and my upper back.
We took a minute to do some stretches and try to relieve some of the tension.
Me: What kind of things do yo think contribute to your tension?
T: Stress, physical activites, such as dancing...
Me: Okay

Then for a minute I talked about what things I would need from her as my student for the class. I mentioned how many lessons we would need to complete, the lessons taught in front of the class, and then the lesson I would do in front of Cindy. I even had Kat come in for this part of the lesson so that we could really hash out any concerns they would have. We then solidified lesson times for each week, and any issues they would have on getting to the lessons, such as parking at the school on the days she would need to come.

As we were about to start singing, I noticed that she was still very tight in her body and wasn't in a healthy place to start singing. So I had her sit in the exercise ball and we worked on releasing down into the body with low breath gestures. Then after we were done, I realized that her time was up. So not a whole lot of singing was done, but I feel like it was still beneficial for both of us. I started trying to pay attention to even the little details of what she was doing, and she got a good practice session of being aware of her body.






 

Taylee B. Katha S. LESSON PLAN 01/17/14

*As stated in Taessia's lesson plan for this date, I will write all of my lesson plans in present tense, since I wrote them in a notebook before the lessons and just didn't post them.*

This will be the first time I have ever heard Kat sing. I intend to start the lesson by asking all the questions we came up with in class. Next I will have her sing something for me. I'm not sure what I'll have her sing, since I don't know what she knows. I told her to bring something to sing, but she seemed a little unsure of what to do, so we'll see I guess. After that I'll do some vocalizes to gauge what things I should focus on in our future lessons.

Taylee B. Taessia K. LESSON PLAN 01/17/14

*Disclaimer: I will write all of my lesson plans in first tense. Although I didn't post them before I gave the lessons, I did write the jist of them in my school notebook before the lessons were given. (Also writing in this tense seems less complicated)*

Even though I have been teaching Tage all of last semester, I decided that for this lesson I still want to ask the questions intended for a very first lesson. Yes I have been teaching her, but some of the questions definitely would still be helpful. Afterwards, I will begin working on her new song that she is preparing for a compatition in the spring. I will also develop some goals to have for the next lesson, since technically I can't make the goals until the questions are answered.

Taylee Beckstead 04/23/14 Lesson

This was an extremely frustrating lesson. It has been a long time since I was so worked up that I started to get mad. Some of the vocalizes included: descending lip trills (followed by some jaw massaging); "lee lay lah loh, lee lay lah loh, lah" descending-she wanted me to imagine the sound going through my hard palate, since when I think of back space I tend to pull my tongue back too; full octave of the previous exercise-my sound was terrible on this. I had a really high larynx and it felt like I was squeezing out the sound. More vocalizes included: "na na na" really nasally on 5-4-3-2-1; "thee" 8-5-3-1; and "thee" full octave descending. She got really stuck on the octave one. She just kept going with it and I felt like my sound was getting worse. I really felt like I was doing my best to attempt the vocalize, but it wasn't working and I started to get annoyed that she was still insisting on it when it was clear that I wasn't benefiting from it all. I finally just asked her to pick a different one since I was getting so worked up. My emotions--at that point--were completely in the way of me doing this scale. Yet we still did it. I think at this point my face was starting to show my frustration, so we moved on to a new one.

And that is how I felt about most of my lesson. I just felt so off, and I couldn't seem to line up with her train of thought. I sounded young and inexperienced on both my songs, and I was really disheartened when I left, knowing that juries were the next day and I had had a terrible last hour. I don't know what was hanging on so much in my body. Something just would now let go.

I'm happy to say that this did not linger into the next day. I'm still not sure even as I listen back to it what was going on. I'm hoping to never have a lesson like that again because I haven't felt that irritated over singing in a long time.